C'CU 288081 






COPYRIGHT, i»ll, BY M. G. BURTON 






N^'^" 



OPPORTUNITY 

Master of human destinies am I. 

Fame, love, and fortune on my footsteps wait. 

Cities and fields I walk > J penetrate 

Deserts and seas remote, and, passing hy 

Hovel, and mart, and palace, soon or late 

I knock unhidden once at every gate ! 

If sleeping, wake — if feasting, rise before 

I turn away. It is the hour of fate. 

And they who follow me reach every state 

Mortals desire, and conquer every foe 

Save death ; but those who douht or hesitate. 

Condemned to failure, penury and woe. 

Seek me in vain and uselessly implore — 

/ answer not, and I return no more. 

— John J. Ingalls 



55. 



Educational Efficiency for the 
Ninety and Nine 



> 



A Plea for the Children of the Elementary and 
Grade Schools 



Untold volumes have been written on the subject of Manual 
Training, Vocational Training, Industrial Education, Digital 
Practice, Motor Activity and every possible division of that great 
movement which concerns itself with the training of the pupil 
with reference to his ability to do tilings — and to do them well. 

It is not the purpose of this paper to set forth any new 
theories or to pass final judgment upon the solution of this 
weighty problem, but rather to add its meager force to the mighty 
trend which is sweeping over our schools and awakening them 
more and more to a realization of their obligation to their 
supporters. 

Ab long as 95 per cent of our children quit school before com- 
pleting the High School, and 85 per cent before completing the 
grade work, there is room for serious concern; as long as the 
common schools, the hope of our country, are turning out such a 
limited number of finished products from the immense amount of 
raw material available, no effort in the interest of more attractive, 
more practical, more educational things in our schools needs to 
apologize for its existence. If any apology is due to the educa- 
tional thought of our land today, it is rather from the school men 
who may be remaining inactive, satisfied in the Mediaeval rut, 
while all around them the Ninety and Nine are crying for bread 
and receiving a stone. 

The Schools and Social Conditions. 

The real value of a marketable product is determined by its 
fitness to meet the demands made upon it. Eegardless of the price, 
a razor is valuable only in so far as it will shave-nothwithstandmg 
the story of those which were made not to shave but to sell. 



4 EDUCATIONAL EFFICIENCY 

A suit of clothing, be it ever so cheap, is valuable to a man in 
proportion to the measure of comfort and happiness it affords him, 
and when, by reason of his physical, aesthetic or fastidious develope- 
ment, or by reason of its own wear and tear, it fails to serve him 
satisfactorily, he has no compunction in laying it aside for another 
which better meets his immediate need. 

The mere hut, which was once sufficient shelter against material 
enemies, is no longer a home for civilized man, his advancement 
along innumerable practical and artistic lines requires furnishings 
and trappings which his earlier condition never dreamed of. Many 
of the old ideas which man once held sacred, as a part of his re- 
ligion, are now listed in the category of superstition. With the 
chains of darkness and ignorance broken, he is left free to^exercise 
both mind and hand in studying and applying the laws of his 
Creator for perpetuating his own existence. 

In Mediaeval times the church undertook to establish a system 
of mental training which would prepare the clergy for their par- 
ticular line of work. It was an attempt to develope knowledge 
from consciousness, by a course of gymnastics in formal reasoning, 
and any sort of observation, experiment or investigation wals 
tabood, A course was designed for the education of church 
officials, who constituted a leisure class and who, to show that 
they were separated from the laboring classes, instituted the cus- 
tom of wearing extra long sleeves with white cuffs. 

At that time universal education was not even thought of, in 
fact such a venture could not have been voiced with any guarantee 
of safety to those advocating it. 

Education was kept under ^the control of the ruling classes, it 
was a monopoly of the aristocracy, for they realized that a think- 
ing people do not serve well under tyranny, "Know the truth and it 
shall make you free" has many literal as well as figurative 
applications. 
Universal Without entering into a discussion of the historic development 
Education, a of our school system as it stands today, suffice it to say, that we have 



Weighty 



attempted the great problem of educating all the people. And 
most of our states have gone so far as to pass laws compelling all 
children under a specified age, usually fourteen or sixteen years, to 
attend some school. 

This is a tremendous task, for at least two very evident reasons. 
First, it brings to our schools a class of children who, being there 



FOE THE NINETY AND NINE 5 

under compulsion, have no real or spontaneous interest in the 
work. For such it is almost literally a case of holding the child's 
nose while we pour down the prescribed dose. 

Second, there is a great responsibility incumbent upon those 
who are to manage these public schools and to formulate and enforce 
observance of curricula. It is no great matter to spread a feast 
where the visitors may eat or decline as their appetites require; 
but the preparation of the feast should lie heavily upon one's con- 
science when he is forcing his visitors to eat, and to eat abundantly 
regardless of appetite or the promptings of nature. 

The corner stone upon which the American government is Educational 
founded is the equality of men, and if this system of universal Equally- 
education is to serve its highest function it must be compatible 
with that principle. Not that sort of equality which gives to all 
men an equal amount of Latin, Science and Mathematics, but that 
adjustment of powers which causes every man to fit harmoniously 
into his particular place in the great mass of self-governing, self- 
supporting citizens. But the colossal joke — and quite a serious one 
it is too — upon our present system is, that it has its very founda- 
tion upon the same principles and curricula which were previously 
employed when the function was exactly the opposite — to establish 
castes. 

To be sure the schools have made progress; there is nothing in 
the whim of those who insist upon lauding the "good old days gone 
by," but society has likewise made phenomenal strides and the 
question is, "Have the schools kept apace?" 

Many feel that it is well nigh sacrilegious to question the 
educational value of anything belonging to the school system. 
But this is an age for business, talents are seeking investment 
where the dividends are surest and higliest. Unprofitable business 
must be reorganized or abandoned. 

Though the artistic, the aesthetic — the true elements of character 
cannot and must not be commercialized, yet they can not escape 
the universal law which says that value is dependent upon efficiency 
to meet human need. 

Fifty years ago school men felt that their work dealt with Change 
the intellectual alone, and for their day they were largely correct. 2* ""y* 
The function of the school has always been to furnish that training 
not afforded by the home, and in those days the home offered much 
indeed and thus relieved the responsibility of the school. Then 



6 EDUCATIONAL EFFICIENCY 

every home was a workshop; every boy was an apprentice to his 
father and every girl to her mother. Children learned to take part 
in the production of home necessities. The boy spent many hours 
during the day with his father assisting in his duties and acquiring 
habits of honest industry. The breadth of his experience extended 
over many processes in mechanics, from raising the flax to the 
completion of the garment; from the clipping of the wool, to its 
preparation for home use ; from the moulding of the bullets to the 
dressing of the victim of the chase. The family cooperated in 
producing practically everything which supplied the table. The 
farmer was his own blacksmith, shoemaker, and even physician, 
if indeed one was ever required. 

Then boys did not need Manual Training in school as much 
as they needed the things which their home experience lacked. 
Terms were very short, and courses could not be broad and com- 
prehensive, so they offered only intellectual training and depended 
upon the home to meet the moral and physical requirements. 
Commercial gut the present day home is far from being a workshop, now 
Home Training everything is brought in ready made. The hurry of industry and 
Inadequate ^^j^ Qf toil are no longer heard. Home is now a synonym for 
relaxation, rest, retirement and often even luxury. Children 
scarcely see the home commodities produced, much less do they 
assist in their making. 

Parents are continually hurrying about their duties and have 
almost no time left to spend in the presence of their children; it is 
a lucky boy who may occasionally follow his father to the shop or 
factory, to the office or store, ^to the forest or field, and there get 
a glimpse at some real industry. 

No one would deny that home conditions now are immeasur- 
ably better than they were fifty years ago; but the point is, what 
are we doing in order still to give to the children the things which 
the home no longer gives? Tlie length of school terms has been 
increased to nine or ten months, more teachers have been employed 
and at higher salaries, finer equipment in every way has been 
furnished — then surely the responsibility for the entire, rounded 
and S3mmetrical education of our youth lies upon the public schools. 

Boards of Health and various authorities have made gratifying 
progress in providing conditions conducive to health. It would be 
criminal to conduct a school and disregard or neglect the laws of 



FOR THE NINETY AND NINE 7 

hygiene; no one disputes that every effort must be made to de- 
velope strong healtliy bodies. But what is the purpose of these 
strong and powerful physical beings? 

A rhinoceros has those qualities. Is the physical an end or Relation of f 
a means ? To be sure a healthy body is essential to the highest Jf^^^' '" ' 
degree of happiness, but the only consideration of the physical at 
all worth while, demands that all these latent possibilities shall 
be trained to their greatest efficiency in action. Strong muscles 
are manly and valuable, but they reach their maximum worth, only 
when combined with skillful intelligent control. 

If our existence were wholly an intellectual one, a course of 
study catering only to intellectual needs would be entirely satis- 
factory, but since we are endowed with bodies purely physical, which 
must be fed, clothed and supported by physical means, surely ma- 
terial needs can not be entirely disregarded. 

It is impossible to separate one from the wants which neces- 
sitate skill and practice of muscular control. The very act of 
feeding one's self requires skillful and graceful use of tools. 

The acts of dressing, putting on the hat or gloves, opening a 
door, walking down the street, raising an umbrella, sharpening a 
pencil, or hundreds upon hundreds of other actions, which go to 
make up a single day of one's life, are all making requirements 
upon the muscular possibilities, demanding, as it were, that every 
single muscle, nerve and fiber, be brought to the point of highest 
efficiency in human service. 

Education must face these problems. The school is appealed 
to; along with its Languages and Mathematics, its Arts and 
Sciences, it is called upon to furnish that which makes not only 
for the hnoiving but also the doing of things. There is a solution. 

Careful investigation and experience have led our foremost 
educators to believe that it is in Manual Training, and the voice 
of economy speaks up and pleads that it be that sort of Manual 
Training which lays the foundation for the vocational. 

A system -which has for its primary function the immediate 
development of the pupil, and for a function scarcely secondary, 
fitting him to go out into the world and enter upon some of its 
great projects and make good among men who do things. 



Manual 
Training. 



8 EDUCATIONAL EFFICIENCY 

The Large High Schools and Special Manual Training 
Schools. 

For many years polytechnic schools have existed and universities 
have offered special courses bordering upon the vocational. The 
doctors, the dentists, the lawyers and the preachers have had their 
respective preparatory schools, but they have always been upon 
the mountain top, while the great sea of humanity never rises to 
the level of its base. 
Elementary The last decade has seen a step toward the masses and the 
gTeat manual training effort of the day is now centered upon the 
secondary schools. But it is gratifying indeed, to those who are 
thinking along this line, to know that it is thoroughly proving its 
worth; that it is opening the eyes of those who have long been 
blind, and is actually coming into successful operation in the 
elementary schools. 

In a very short time hand work is to find its place in every 
grade down to the first primary, and it is destined to take lodge- 
ment where it should have had it origin. 

Practically all the large high schools of today are well equipped 
with Manual Training departments, where able instruction is being 
offered in various lines of work. In many of our cities Special 
]\Ianual Training schools have been established at enormous ex- 
pense and all this effort most assuredly deserves our hearty 
appreciation and support. No progressive educator, or even lay- 
man, would ever begrudge a single dollar that such an institution 
cost, but it surely calls attention to a lamentable condition; the 
fact that such a very, very few students are eligible. It would 
look too bad to see a beautifully equipped Pullman car go whirling 
by with only one or two passengers, while the weary and foot-sore 
Ninety and Nine trudged along trying to make the selfsame 
journey. 
Manualjrajn- If every boy, throughout the United States, who enters High 
School should have an opportunity to take some kind of Manual 
Training work — and this is far from the case at present — even 
then it would be a small percent of the great mass of American 
school children. And again, who are they that can remain in 
school long enough to reach this High School course ? They are the 
sons and daughters of well to do men, who can support their 
families without their assistance. These children quite likely will 



Ing for All. 



for High School 
Manual Train- 



FOE THE NINETY AND NINE 9 

not be required to quit school and go to work. They, if anybody, 
could get along fairly well without Manual Training. 

But their less fortunate classmates, the great majority, the 
Ninety and Nine, who under the lash of poverty were driven from 
this excellent opportunity of being fitted for their life work, went 
out into the world and sought that kind of labor which totally 
unpracticed hands could do. 

Those who do reach this course come to this beautiful elaborate Grade Pupils 
equipment wholly unprepared to make the most of it: entirelv "ot Prepared 

. . 1 1 • • 'J Inr Utah Cnkn 

Without prehmmary hand training, which, if it had been given them 
during their earlier years, M'ould have served a valuable educational '"8- 
function, besides preparing them for this advanced work which 
should in a large measure, bear upon the vocational. Pupils come 
to these schools without knowing so much as the names and func- 
tions of the tools, much less do they have any idea how they should 
be handled. By watching a beginning High School class of boys, 
taking their first lesson in bench work, one is easily convinced 
that they are rather late in taking up the work. 

Musicians have long recognized the value of having children 
start very early in instrumental work. It is very common to see 
small children play well on the piano, their nimble fingers easily 
acquire skill which the adult develops with difficulty. Who would 
advocate waiting until a child is seventeen or eighteen years of 
age before starting him in instrumental music? And yet it is 
scarcely less an accomplishment to handle a saw or a chisel than 
a violin bow. 

Our fine mechanics, who handle tools with ease and grace — our 
real artists are, as a rule, to use the old phrase, born with tools in 
their hands. The use of tools can not be learned in a day, it 
requires years of careful constant practice to become proficient in 
handling even a hammer, saw or plane. He who takes up the 
study and use of tools after reaching the age of manhood has the 
odds very much against his ever becoming a model of skill. Lucky 
is the lad whose first toys are real tools. 

So these elegant schools with their thousands of dollars worth Material 
of equipment and their proficient teacher, who is capable of develop- Expression. 
ing masters of mechanics, must handle raw material, and decidedly 
raw some of it is. These pupils have no conception of material 
expression; they may be able to recite all the definitions in the 
Geometry, but can not see that the right angles which they have 



10 EDUCATIOXAL EFFICIENCY 

constructed in a picture frame deny the definition by at least ten 
degrees. Tliey have no notions as to the origin, preparation or 
application of materials. They do not remember that their text 
in Botany mentioned the quartered oak as one of the deciduous 
trees, hence they can not understand why any such lumber is in 
the shop. Xor do they recall that the Geography gave them the 
location of brass mines; they do not know whether glue is the 
sap from some sort of sticky plant, or is the essence of attraction 
extracted from a horseshoe magnet. We find them equally without 
information on hundreds of other points of interest. To be sure 
they know the subjunction forms of all Latin verbs ; the full results 
of the Crusades, and the laws of falling bodies, but this shop work 
has a different means of interpreting things, it is a radical change 
from the old routine of abstract class work; they fail to see the 
correlation, and why shouldn't they ? — There isn't any. 

They have been reading in books, matching the signs of ideas, 
now they are called upon to match real materials. They have been 
talking about what others have done, perhaps two thousand 5'ears 
ago, now they are doing things themselves. 

So they must be met on their own level, you can not commence 
at the top to teach boys Manual Training any more than you can 
to build a brick chimney. They must learn to square up stock, 
to lay out and execute the most simple operations — to do the 
kindergarten processes of hand work, if you please, — and that in 
a Special Manual Training school for men, Avhen all these ele- 
mentary things could just as well, and with far better economy, have 
been taught in the proverbial little red school house on the hill. 
The Teade School. 
Trade Schools The trade school separate and apart from the regular public 
Miss the Mark. g^j^QQi^ always will be a proposition detrimental to the underlying 
principles of our free government. While it may serve the im- 
mediate need of furnishing more skillful artisans, it will produce 
them at an expense ultimately unjustifiable. We are not so much 
in need of better mechanics as we are of better men who are 
mechanics. Of course this is an age of specialists, and the coming 
ages will be more so — and well they should, but it is also true that 
the specialist will constantly require l:)roader and more com- 
prehensive development. 

It requires a wide and solid base to support a lofty pinnacle 
with any degree of firmness. 



lo Social 
Conditions. 



FOR THE NINETY AND NINE 11 

The effort at universal education is not to make every man a 
"Jack-of-all-Trades/' but to give him a comprehension and appre- 
ciation of as many things as possible^ along -with a mastery of some- 
thing. The man who does common things uncommonly well will 
always have a job and Avill receive a goodly share of happiness 
along with his wages. 

Trade and Agricultural schools, catering only to the vocational Special Schools 
needs of those who are to do that kind of work, will tend to estab- petfimewtai 
lish castes, to peasantize the farmer, to reduce the laborer to serf- 
dom and to leave the management of social and governmental 
affairs to those trained for that particular line. This will mean 
the centralization of power in the hands of the aristocracy, and 
will eventually compel us to reiterate the experience of the Eomans. 
It means thought versus labor, the thinking man lording it over the 
laboring man, rather than the laboring man doing his own thinking 
and thereby becoming master of his own capabilities. 

Hours In a Factory. 

Some have advocated the idea of having students spend part 
of their time in school and the remainder in actual work in some 
nearby factory. This very act of giving up the pupils for half, or 
any fraction of the time, and sending them away for training, is 
an open confession that something about the school is wrong. Our 
course is omitting something valuable, our methods of presentation 
are not effective, the required equipment is not furnished or some- 
thing, somehow, somewhere is at fault. 

Those who favor this plan believe that it gives the pupils train- 
ing in realities; that they here meet the real problems of industry 
and learn to solve them as they are being solved by men of affairs 
in the commercial world; that pupils acquire habits of promptness 
and application under factory supervision. Concede that this A Weakness 
is true, it is only a reflection upon the status of our public schools. 
If our present system lacks these realities, if it fails to inspire pupils 
with a desire to apply themselves, then certainly we should revise 
the system. Let us install the practical things rather than send 
the pupils elsewhere to seek them. Commercial enterprises are not 
established with the design of becoming educational institutions. 

Are factory superintendents and foremen, as a rule, the proper 
type of men to supervise the development of our youth? Do they 
understand how to appeal to boys, to awaken their enthusiasm and 



Confessed. 



12 EDUCATIONAL EFFICIENCY 

to inspire them to educational attainment ? If the answer is affirma- 
tive, where did they acquire this proficiency? 

Let us cast our psycology and pedagogy to the four winds and 
cease studying child development and get busy upon factory meth- 
ods, if we are going to concede that our boys must be sent there to 
get the realities of life. 

But it does not require any deep consideration to see that fac- 
tory influences upon young minds are degrading, not only intel- 
lectually but morally. Here boys are brought into immediate con- 
tact with men lacking in ambition, void of the sesthetic element 
and usually, in many ways, far below the average of American citi- 
zenship. They become mere machines, so mechanical in the routine 
of their motions that there is no more thought on their part than 
on the part of the machine itself — working to make a living, not to 
make a life. Suppose our boys rise above the level of the laborer; 
even if they go a step higlier than those who merely punch so many 
holes in a piece of iron without any idea of its function; even if 
they could enter into the management of a great plant — and this is 
far from probable — the notions acquired would be risky indeed 
when grafted upon immature minds. 

The conflict for financial aggrandizement needs no encourage- 
ment in the American youth. They will be overselfish despite all 
endeavors to the contrary. 

Taking hours out of the present school day and spending them 
at employment in the factory can never be the solution; it is only 
a makeshift prompted by an effort at economy. Its unsatisfactory 
results soon will be added tb increase the number of arguments 
which are demanding that the schools shoulder their entire responsi- 
bility and fulfill tlieir function. 

The Common School Children. — The Ninety and Nine. 

Throughout this discussion thus far we have left the Ninety and 
Nine in the wilderness and gone in search of the One ; when, lo ! 
it is not the One which has gone astray but the Ninety and Nine. 
The Few versus The universities, colleges and special schools are caring for the 
favored few; but what is being done for the vast army of grade 
children, twenty million strong, which today are under the training 
of our public schools, but tomorrow will be turned over to the state 
as its citizenship? 



the Many. 



FOR THE NINETY AND NINE 13 

Existing social conditions demand that at least 90 per cent of 
them shall go to fill the ranks of those who are destined to be 
hewers of wood and drawers of water. As they go forth to enter 
life's duties they will each one be confronted by the world's great 
challenge, "Young man, what hast thou in thy hand ?" 

David of old went forth with his sling and pebbles — tools which 
his boyhood days had mastered — and right well did they serve him 
in time of imminent peril. The Goliath of necessity, of want and 
grim penury still walks up and down the land challenging to mortal 
combat every young man, too many of whom must go forth to meet 
him all unarmed and empty handed. 

If the school is to remedy this plight, it must reach the child 
when he is under its influences, and that is early in the grades. 

Those who do not see the value of Manual Training in the 
grades are often under the impression that it is intended to be voca- 
tional, but the distinction is clearly marked. Industrial training 
places the emphasis upon the shop product, with the intention of 
working out the most skillful and economic way of producing mar- 
ketable goods. But in the pedagogy of Manual Training the student 
is the product of paramount consideration. The lesson has value 
only in proportion to its influence upon the boy ; every real Manual 
Training lesson should be planned with the needs of the boy, not of 
commerce, in mind. If it dpes not promote him intellectually and 
morally as well as physically, it is a failure, though the product 
may be the acme of mechanical perfection. 

There is sure to be great risk in taking up industrial or voca- 
tional work with young children. While their life habits and char- 
acters are in the most plastic stage of formation, it is certainly 
unfair to have them employed at a task the development of which 
is rated above their own development. 

But no child is too young to begin Manual Training in the The Plastic Age 
broad sense of the term, nor is there any period in his progress °* ""^ ''*'"'*• 
when it should be neglected. When a pretty object is held before 
the infant he will reach for it ; this is one of the first Manual Train- 
ing lessons. Mother Nature, his earliest and best teacher, intends 
to give his hands a chance to confirm, in a concrete way, his ab- 
stract impression of that object. In all his first lessons his hands, 
his feet, the back of his head — his entire physical being gives him 
his most vivid impressions. The child who has received physical 



14 EDUCATIONAL EFFICIENCY 

evidence that fire will burn him has a sufficiently clear conception 
of the fact, although he cannot explain molecular vibration. 

When he starts to school shall we reverse the process and 
require him to remain quiet for long periods at a time? Shall we 
tell him to sit still at his desk and study, that this is brain work 
now — a process of instruction ? Of course, the activity, the play, the 
exercise will come in due time and in sufficient quantity, but that 
is a separate consideration, a function apart from acquiring hnowl- 
edge. It does not require a psychologist to see the absurdity of 
such reasoning, yet are you sure that such a criticism would not 
find us in a large measure guilty? 
Manual Train- Too many think that Manual Training is a new subject seek- 
ing Vitalizes ij2g admission in an already overcrowded curriculum. Bift such is 
the Course. 

not the case. It is not seeking admission. Its vital points are 

there, only demanding recognition and development. The function 
of Manual Training is not so much to make the course extensive as 
to render much of the present work more intensive. 

Material expression should be so closely and vitally correlated 
with every subject of school work that it would be a part of it as 
specifically and inseparably as oxygen is a part of the air. 

This broad use of the term does not mean merely hand training 
but applies to the control of the entire body as the natural and 
legitimate means of expression ; it proposes to give some visible and 
tangible expression to ideas and ideals. Any impression is deep- 
ened when portrayed and accompanied by physical expression. If a 
man when slightly angry will clinch his fists, gi-it his teeth and 
stamp about, he will find hijnself growing all the more angry by 
the very reaction of his own muscular exertion. On the contrary, 
many men do much toward keeping themselves in a happy state 
of mind by continually exercising the muscles which make smiles. 

Every member of the body should be made to co-operate per- 
fectly in portraying intellectual ideas. 

Language is merely a mechanical and physical means of bridg- 
ing over between two minds which wish to communicate. A ges- 
ture, a nod of the head, a wink of the eye or any change of facial 
expression may add immeasurably to one's language. 

All these are only natural material expressions, but only recently 
has the world recognized their connection with the subject of 
Manual Training. 



FOR THE NINETY AND NINE 15 

Penmanship was one of the very earliest forms of Manual 
Training to be adopted by the schools, and its value as a means of 
expression has never been disputed. But for a long time written 
expression was limited to conventional characters called letters, and 
no form of drawing was tolerated even among the foremost 
educators. 

Any student, fortunately endowed with unusual initiative, 
who dared vent an idea by embodying it in a drawing, was con- 
sidered a culprit, and was required to make restitution. Penman- 
ship was digital training, but limited almost entirely to the fin- 
gers, although the forearm was slightly called into action. 

Many an old-time writing teacher would spend hours to get a 
boy to write the word hall, with all the letters just the right size, 
form and degree of slant, but would be shocked almost to anger to 
find that the boy had drawn a single picture of a ball upon the 
margin of his paper. We can only guess what would have been 
the fate of a lad who should have been caught making a real ball in 
time of school. 

By din of hard knocks. Drawing has finally forced its way to 



Penmanship 



are Manual 
Training. 



recognition, to such an extent that no program is considered com- and Drawing 
plete toda}^, unless it provides for ample instruction and practice 
in both mechanical and freehand work. 

All are agreed that the pupil's conception of the physical fea- 
tures of a country is very inuch clarified and impressed by draw- 
ing a map showing the details. If he goes a step further and 
models a map in relief, using paper pulp, dough, or some kind of 
plastic clay, he has practically removed all possibilities of a mis- 
conception. The drawing has only one plain upon which he is 
restricted to two dimensions, while his relief model can be made 
true to reality in every respect, and is therefore more valuable in 
educational efficiency, 

A child may understand that our western highlands are more 
elevated than the eastern highlands, but this does not assure that 
he will long remember it. If he gives a verbal explanation of his 
understanding, it will help him very much to retain it; if he 
employs more muscles and writes it out, better still; yet a draw- 
ing, which, by shading or arrangement of colors, works out the 
idea, makes a stronger demand upon means of expression and 
thereby deepens the impression. But the modeling necessitates 



16 EDUCATIONAL EFFICIENCY 

more activity, calls more motor powers into co-operation, and thus 
almost guarantees that the impression will be lasting. 

One may impart his idea of a six equal sided figure by the 
word cube; he may render this more intelligible by drawing a 
perspective or isometric view; but if he really constructs this fig- 
ure of wood or some other material, his conception and interpreta- 
tion are perfect. 
Instruction and Such illustrations might be cited by scores and scores to show 
Construction, ^j^^^^ ^^iq process of teaching should be not only instruction, but 
also construction. Of course, there are many things in school work 
necessarily abstract, and it would be practically impossible to give 
them concrete existence. Yet this does not argue that we are 
therefore licensed to omit the construction altogether; rather, 
every point of imparted instruction should, if possible, be followed 
by its related construction. 
Book Teaching This would require considerable time as a first investment, 
versus Subject ]-,^^|- j^ would certainly pay large dividends in results achieved. One 
of the greatest criticisms that could be passed upon the American 
school system today is that we are going too fast; we are too 
anxious to cover a large number of pages; consequently, we are 
often teaching the book instead of the subject. The old saying of 
passing "in at one ear and out at the other" applies to much of 
our classroom work. Lessons are conned by rote. In graphophone 
style, students often grind out so many words which they have 
previously ground in, and after the recitation is over they not only 
lay it aside, but usually destroy the record. 

We teach too many definitions and too few meanings. To 
instruct a child in regard to a square, a circle, or a rhomboid, one 
should have him observe its characteristic features; then, from 
his understanding, draw it or cut it out of paper; then finally 
construct it of some sort of more substantial material. 

The more work a pupil is required to do to bring out perfectly 
the distinguishing features of his project, the more sure they are 
to stick in his memory. The boy who has labored for hours to 
make a square picture frame has an appreciation of a right angle 
which he could not have gained from the dictionary. In order 
that these exercises in construction may have vital interest for the 
students, they must be employed in making something real. 

The construction of a dihedral angle for its own sake would not 
be very inspiring to a lad, but the dihedral angle as an incident in 



FOE THE NINETY AND NINE 17 

putting together his dove cote or tool chest would appeal to his 
appreciation. We should never lose sight of the fact that it is 
hard to teach a live boy with a dead lesson. Since a child cannot 
make everything which he is studying about, he should make 
those things which, while valuable in themselves, are typical and 
representative of many of the great principles of his material 
environment. 

A top whittled from a spool may illustrate much of the prin- Considering the 
ciple of a monorail car ; a box kite may help solve the mysteries '"'ei'est of the 
of the biplane, and a rude wheel, on a toy wagon, is typical of °^' 
that principle of revolution upon which the industries of the 
world depend. 

He should be allowed to make things which appeal to him, but 
he should be so directed that he will make them well. It is 
legitimate for a boy to make a toy gun or a kite, and there is much 
education in either problem, provided it demands and receives his 
best effort. 

But it requires a teacher to bring out and duly emphasize this The Instructor 
correlation — a teacher who understands the pupil and knows how f J?JJ|Ir® ^ 
to appreciate his view-point. There must be selected for him a 
carefully graded course, which will serve not only for training 
his muscles — a course in gymnastics would do that admirably — 
but a course which will develop him sesthetically, ethically and intel- 
lectually, as well as practically. This course while it is designed 
for its real educational functions should keep in mind the life 
needs of the students, in the various activities which they may be 
called upon to perform. A boy might be taught to control the 
muscles which move his ears, and that would be motor control, a 
form of manual training, and it might have some value in an 
impression upon his intellect, but certainly such muscular control 
would not have much connection with anything which pertains to 
the vocations of life. 

From this point of view certain forms of digital training have 
been discarded and certain others have been installed. It is not 
satisfactory merely to know that a child is busy — he must be 
worldng with an effort toward a design. The teacher should motiv- 
ate his industry. 



18 EDUCATIONAL EFFICIENCY 

Busy Work. 
"Busy Work" The so-called '^TDUsy-work" craze swept over our schools a few 
Lacks Motive, jgars ago, and the very sound of the term caused it to meet the 
approval of many of our educators. Every beginning teacher was 
zealous to secure abundant materials for busy work to employ 
the hands of pupils who might otherwise annoy her. Much of 
this work was entirely without purpose or application. For hours 
children have played with colored pegs or beads or what not, with- 
out the least ideal or design in mind. Surely, the educational 
value of such employment, without plan or correlation, is very 
limited. A child might gain much good from stringing a few 
plain white beads, but to continue stringing white beads, without any 
variation of color, or of position or design, soon loses all thought 
requirement and becomes a waste of time. But if to the finger 
practice of stringing of the beads there is added careful concentra- 
tion of mental force in order to get the required results, then the 
work becomes real Manual Training, — a co-operation of mind and 
hand. 

Writing, drawing, paper construction, clay modeling, cooking, 
sewing, bench work in wood and metal, and thousands of other 
processes, have the elements which make Manual Training work 
valuable. That is, while they are awakening interest and impart- 
ing enthusiasm, they are developing the various members of the 
body to serve human needs more efficiently and more pleasantly. 

^Esthetic and Ethical Value. 

The appreciation of the aesthetic and the sense of the ethical 
are among the distinguishing characteristics which mark off man 
from the animal kingdom, and the broader the development of these 
possibilities, the wider the range between the human and the brute. 
Surely the school cannot shirk its duty of fostering every influ- 
ence which may aid in this great soul development. 
inspiration of Anything Avhich has objective beauty, symmetry and grace is 
Vaiue to an inspiration to children. A teacher who is neat, clean and tidy, 
and adds to this a pleasant face, with one of those contagious 
smiles of real sympathy, is a blessing to any school room. 

The beauty of a red sled has brought joy to many a youngster 
who was not particularly enthusiastic over the Parthenon or the 
Coliseum. And if this sled represents his own handiwork, its 
beautv and value to him are enhanced bevond measure. 



FOE THE XIXETY AXD NINE 19 

A nice, clean piece of material is an inspiration to a boy. Its 
clean, smooth surface gains his respect, and to mar or deface its 
beauty with a poor effort, he feels would be almost cruel. This is 
a strong reason why beginning pupils in hand work should' be fur- 
nished the very best of material ; older or more mature students 
may be able to see the elegance of the finished product even while 
the material is yet in the rough, but this is too remote and abstract 
for the beginner. 

It has been almost surprising to notice that many students, 
who were careless with their books and even untidy in person, 
have shown so much intuitive respect for their handiwork that 
the reaction improved all their habits. It is psychologically true 
that the best way to inculcate wholesome self-respect upon a boy is 
to engender within him the proper respect for his environment. 

Psychologists have explained, and we have all observed, the 
change of attitude which a child has for an object as soon as its 
ownership is transferred to him. A toy may be given to a child 
with the understanding that he may do with it entirely as he 
desires, but that the toy is to remain the property of his father. 
However proud the boy may be to receive this gift under these 
conditions, his exultation will have a new unexplainable sponta- 
neity if the father afterwards tells him that he may have this toy 
all for his own. 

While satisfaction of undisputed ownership of things is the The Pride of 
consideration for which mosl human efforts are expended, yet this Ownership and 
gratification is immeasurably augmented if to ownership of things Creatorship, 
it may add creatorship of them. Only those who have experienced 
the thrill of satisfaction which comes to one who is looking upon 
the product of his own handiwork, can know and appreciate the 
aesthetic value which a finished piece of work has upon the child 
who did it. 

The grammar or history lesson would have the same value if 
the results of a completed lesson were as evident to the child, but 
they are not; neither can they be made so, however explicit their 
presentation. 

If Manual Training results were entirely devoid of the practical 
and of the aesthetic, its ethical influence alone would still justify 
its installation. 

The very nature of classroom instruction and its required re- 
search work tend towards selfishness. It is too much a storing up 



20 EDUCATIOXAL EFFICIEXCY 

within one's self for one's self. Students often feel that they are 
to gather facts and information to be retained and laid away 
as the miser does his gold. The finished lesson too seldom shows 
the piipil that it has given him anything which he may share with 
others. 
AitrulsHc When a child has completed his shop problem, his efforts have 
Tendencies left material and substantial evidence of his integrity. His sense 
*** ' of honesty to himself and to those about him is quickened by the 
undeniable imperfections in his work. His associates may see and 
enjoy what he has accomplished; he has something which he may 
carrv home to arouse the admiration of his parents. And it often 
happens that some of those very fathers who do not have sufficient 
interest in a son's school work to sign his monthlv erade card will 
become enthusiastic over something he has made. When a bo}"^s 
picture frame or paper rack is given a place among the home deco- 
rations, or when some friend has taken a bit of his work as a 
remembrance, he realizes that school is enabling him to exercise 
that most laudable of all human functions — to do something for 
somebody. 

The hidden and abstract egoistic possibilities have been trans- 
formed into open and concrete expression for altruistic service. 

SoiTE Suggestions in Eegaed to the Solution. 

But word pictures of what would be good to do, and theory of 
what ought to be done, do not always aid greatly in obtaining the 
things which they advocate. 

A man who is drowning is not particularly concerned in the 
theories of buoyancy, but any real floating substance would be met 
with some appreciation. So those who are instructing their pupils 
without any form of Hand Training, should give heed to every 
straw of suggestion which might come their way. If its installa- 
tion was thus earnestly and unanimously pursued, a very short 
time would find some sort of Manual Training work in absolutely 
every school throughout the country. But the task looks like such 
a momentous one that many are loath to undertake it. They assign 
reasons galore to justify their letharg}-, the principal ones of which 
are about three in number: First, lack of time; second, lack of 
money; and tliird, lack of trained teachers. 

The more conservative school men hold up and magnify these 
supposed difficulties until they intimidate many younger and more 



FOR THE NINETY AND NINE 21 

energetic teachers, who would otherwise dare to push the movement 
according to their convictions. 

In the consideration of any question, only those who have 
made many careful tests have any right to a firm opinion, and 
men of such experience agree that lack of time can not be listed 
as an influence against introducing Manual Training in every one 
of our elementary schools. 

Lack of Time. 

It is the consensus of opinion among such educators as Presi- Results of 
dent F. A. Cotton, of La Crosse, Wis. ; Prof. 0. H. Benson, Ed. *'""^' ^"''■ 
Dept. of Int., Washington, D. C. ; President, J. E. Steward, Na- 
tional Manual Training Corporation ; Superintendent J. F. Haines, 
Noblesville, Ind., and hundreds of others who have given grade 
pupils time for Manual Training work, that they not only are 
not retarded in their other studies, but are invariably strengthened 
to a great degree. 

In six thousand cases carefully tested in the city of Chicago, 
it was definitely proven that a boy takes Manual Training and 
arithmetic quicker than he takes arithmetic alone. Over thirty 
thousand other experiments throughout the United States, from 
Massachusetts to California, and from Dakota to Texas, have given 
similar results. But the amusing thing to those who really know 
the Manual Training experience of the country is that those 
school men who have never^ made any investigation will attempt 
to dispute it. 

Many a lad, too old to be called a child, too young to be con- yj^^ ^\nQti 
sidered a man, is floundering about in the pollywog stage — on the and Nine. 
verge of quitting school because he has no aim in view, he doesn't 
know where he is going; he hasn't located his directions. Such 
boys are not the exception; they are abundant in every school — 
in fact, they are the majority — the ninety and nine. 

Manual Training has enabled hundreds and hundreds of just 
such fellows to find themselves. The few hours of time spent upon 
the hand work have often instilled new energy and ambition which 
paid as returns a life career of valuable service. 

It is the dull boy's salvation; it keeps the otherwise uninter- 
ested lad in school. 

Watt was a dull boy, but certainly the world owes much to his 
application and inventive genius. Every day is proving more and 



22 EDUCATIOIvrAL EFFICIENCY 

more the truth of the statement that genius is not inspiration but 
perspiration. 

In his final examination for graduation, Napoleon stood forty- 
second in his class. Will someone kindly name any of the forty- 
one who ranked above him in scholarship? Somewhere Napoleon 
learned the value of hard effort. 

We are never losing time when we are teaching our boys and 
girls to worh, just plain W-O-E-K, like our grandfathers used to 
spell it. Our schools are turning out too many young men who 
are looking for positions, rather than work — ^who think they should 
receive a salary rather than wages. There is no doubt that our 
schools are very much to blame for hard work going out of repute. 
Pupils have been taught to study their books, until they o^ten for- 
get the real work of the world. The books would get a more spon- 
taneous and vital consideration if our schools would take the time 
to require pupils to work and work until they fairly craved the 
assistance of books. 

Lack of Money. 
c! Capita Cost The lack of finances can never be given as satisfactory reason 
for neglecting to install Manual Training in the gTades. This 
excuse is usually a mere subterfuge for the lack of ambition and 
conviction. While the cry of poverty is going up and the so-called 
enormous expense of the public schools is being lamented, statistics 
show that the per capita cost of crime in the United States today 
is greater than the per capita cost of education. Not many people 
complain because of the annual outlay necessitated by criminals. 
When we consider the class of men who require this expense, we 
find that three-fourths of them are incompetents, while less than 
one-fourth are illiterates. Most of them have been trained beyond 
the point of illiteracy, but not to that practical efficiency of self- 
support, 

A certain county once spent five thousand dollars to send a 
young man to the penitentiary, and the taxpayers seemed to feel 
that it was a good investment. That same amount of money could 
have placed, and maintained for a year, some creditable kind of 
Manual Training in every school throughout that country — but 
would those same taxpayers have considered that well spent ? 

Our state recognizes its duty in all its penal institutions and 
proceeds to train the hands of its inmates. In reformation it offers 
hand work, regardless of cost; would it not be economy to offer 



ci Schools and 
of Crime, 



FOR THE NINETY AND NINE 23 

some of it during formation, and thus dispense with the necessity of 
so much reformation? 

]\Iost of our reformatories have better advantages in every way Reformatories 
than our public schools. If our honest, upright boys from the OWer Better 
public schools should visit some of our boys' reformatories and see 
their beautiful shops, their gymnasiums, their gardens and agri- 
cultural plots, they would probably feel that the state places the 
premium upon the bad boy. 

It would not require great expense for every school in the 
United States to fit itself to do some very valuable work in Manual 
Training. It does not of necessity demand a separate room. It 
is a mistaken idea that this work calls for line shafts with their 
whirling pulleys and flying belts. Those things are not meant for 
hand training, but rather to employ power to take the place of 
hand effort; their design is commercial rather than educational; 
therefore they belong to the vocational schools. 

The simple fundamental hand tools are the principal things 
needed in undertaking this work. There is more possibility of 
acquiring skill with an ordinary hammer than with a pile-driver; 
more room for art in the use of a hand saw or chisel than in the 
largest circle saw ever driven by steam, and more practical edu- 
cation in a carpenter's steel square than the average student gets 
out of his algebra and geometry combined. 

A very small outlay would furnish a working nucleus. Tables The Dignity 
or benches could be, and in some schools have been, installed in the "* '•*''*"'■ 
regular school room. To be sure, it gives it the appearance of indus- 
try, but certainly nothing is more inspiring. A place for work is 
just as dignified as a place for study. A boy should be taught that he 
can be just as much a gentleman, standing up before his vise with 
his hands dirty and his sleeves rolled up, as he can sitting by his 
dictionary with a pencil behind his ear. 

Because certain parts of the room are periodically being used 
for work is no reason why they need be untidy or in any way 
objectionable. All the required tools and materials, when not in 
use, should be kept in systematic order. It is as much a part of 
one's education to learn how to care for things as it is to construct 
them. The very order and neatness of the shop, having a place 
for everything and then seeing that it is kept there, has a tendency 
to reflect organization and system upon the child's way of thinking. 
Satisfactory tool cases, shelves or receptacles can be constructed 



24 EDUCATIONAL EFFICIENCY 

by the class, even if they have to resort to scrap lumber or dry 
goods boxes for material. 

In some of the smaller schools where Manual Training classes 
are doing excellent work today, the original expense was met by 
receipts from school entertainments. In others, the pupils or 
their parents paid a small monthly fee. In still others, the super- 
intendent or enthusiastic teachers — and jewels they were too — 
paid for the initial cost. In all such cases the success of the work 
attracted the attention of parents and officials and so won their 
approval that the proper funds were readily provided. 

Our progress is retarded not so much by a lack of finances as 
by the lack of disposition to make the outlay. School boards and 
taxpayers do not realize the educational value of hand work, and 
why should they? We must not expect laymen to thrust equip- 
ment and other advantages upon us as long as we teachers remain 
so vacillating or timid in our requisitions. 

If those who have the management of naval affairs in hand 
feel the need of more battleships, they demand them, and we, the 
greatest Christian and peace-loving people on the globe, immedi- 
ately furnish them. If shortage of funds threatens to delay the 
work on the Panama Canal, we unflinchingly go into our coffers 
and hand over the amount. No public progress ceases its strides 
and waits for money to be thrust upon it. Why should we school 
teachers, who are molding the lives of those who will soon control 
all these affairs, hesitate to demand the things we need? Suppose 
some of the taxpayers do flinch quite a little, and say some things 
which may disturb the foundation of our tenure of office? We 
must follow our convictions when we know that we are right. They 
do not mean it — they are waiting to be shown, and, like the pupil, 
they are best impressed by material results. We need have no 
scruples against calling for more equipment as long as the average 
parent is allowing his child to spend enough for luxury each week 
to pay more than his apportionment of the Manual Training 
department. 

Lack of Teachees. 

Then comes the averred difficulty in finding teachers who are . 
sufficiently trained to present this work; but this condition need 
not be considered appalling. Those who are so insistent upon the 
preparation of these teachers usually refer almost entirely to the 
mechanical side. They may be quite enthusiastic for the introduc- 



FOR THE NINETY AND NINE 25 

tion of Manual Training, but their enthusiasm has certainly outrun 
their pedagogy. The need is not for mechanics to do our teaching, 
but for teachers who may have sufficient interest and appreciation 
for mechanical principles to study their various applications, and 
employ their present pedagogy in their presentation. 

A mechanic is one thing, but a teacher is decidedly another. A Pedagogy 
fine mechanic may understand materials and processes of dealing Jfgpjjgnjgg 
with them, but if he has not made a very careful study of the 
development of the child mind, he is a dangerous misfit in the 
school business. 

It is not the intention to underrate the special teacher, pro- 
vided he is primarily a teacher; but it frequently happens that the 
so-called special Manual Training teacher is one whose entire 
training was acquired in some mill, factory or cabinet shop. It 
has never been his business to organize courses of study, to select 
and develop points of correlation, nor to seek out processes of 
greatest educational value. While school men of long years of expe- 
rience are undecided as to matters pertaining to this vital subject, 
does it look altogether advisable to entrust its presentation to men 
who are pedagogically untrained? No school superintendent would 
consider placing a German class in charge of a native-born Ger- 
man, be he ever so polished in that tongue, unless he also knew the 
language of the class sufficiently well to translate his knowledge 
into terms of their comprehension. So the mechanic, though he 
may be authority in his line; is at sea to apply his understanding 
or skill to the educational development of young minds, unless he 
comprehends the processes of that development. 

If there is any subject in the curriculum which demands care- 
ful handling and sound psychology, it is Manual Training. The 
land is full of teachers who can do very excellent work in Heading, 
Arithmetic, History or Grammar. These subjects have been well 
taught so long that correct methods have been worked out and 
pretty well established— except the fact that we are somewhat neg- 
lecting their concrete application. 

The very newness of Manual Training and its struggle against The Best 
conservatism and poverty require that it should be placed in the J^g^„"gj^^^^'" 
hands only of teachers of recognized ability. It is in nowise antag- Manual 
onistic to the classics and the so-called cultural subjects, but it is Training 
allied with their interests and correlated with their subject matter. 
Our having neglected Manual Training so long should not have 



26 EDUCATIONAL EFFICIENCY 

the detrimental reaction of causing us to attempt a reversal of our 
pedagogy. The truths, concepts and judgments are to be imparted, 
handled and developed by the same kind of minds to which our 
schools have long been imparting knowledge on other subjects. 

The same processes of inductive and deductive reasoning must 
be employed. The laws of teaching are constant; we must always 
work from the Tcnown to the related unhnoion, and the skill of the 
teacher lies in her ability to seek out and present this relation. We 
can not invent any new kind of ps3'Chology for the subject of Manual 
Training; neither can we hope to educate by the introduction of 
that work if we intrust it to artisans who, on account of their 
skill with material things, and lack of understanding of mental 
needs, will cater to the former at the expense of the latter.* 

Our lack of Manual Training teachers is also due to the fact 
that many of us are expecting entirely too much of them. Super- 
intendents are expecting these teachers to originate and organize 
their own courses; to determine absolutely what things are to be 
made, and their order of sequence ; to be able to give all the instruc- 
tion the class may need, and serve as an encyclopedia of general 
information. Certainly there are some teachers who can do all 
these things, but they are very few and far between. The average 
special Manual Training teacher is some young fellow who has little 
or no experience in the school room; who has never conceived the 
problem of organizing any subject matter into a logical course; 
whose only training in his chosen line consists of a few months 
in preparatory school. It is not the purpose of this argument to 
discourage or any way underestimate the ambition of such very 
worthy teachers, but rather to defend them against the accusations 
of those who do not know what to expect. These same superin- 
tendents who are expecting such unprepared Manual Training 
teachers to make good, under such inauspicous conditions, would 
not advise the oldest Mathematics or History teacher in the corps 
to attempt her subject without a good text to serve at least as an 
outline. 

If there is created a new department, under a different teacher, 
for this hand work, it tends too much to set it off from the other' 
subjects, as if to differentiate between the mind and the hand, 
when the very issue is to bring them into closer co-ordination. 

In the elementary schools, the regular teacher who has charge 
of the other work is certainly the one best prepared to conduct 



FOR THE NINETY AND NINE 27 

their hand training. It is she who knows all their characteristics Unity Rather 
and how to appeal best to their various natures. Being thoroughly ^^^^ Division 
acquainted with all their difficulties and weaknesses, she can have 
a broader sympathy for the pupil who is dull in one line because 
she has an opportunity to know of some subject where he may be 
doing very much better. She can correlate the concrete with the 
abstract by seeing that everything which the boy does with his 
hands is clearly related with the subjects which he is studying in 
the class room. 

COREELATION WITH THE EeGULAR STUDIES. 

The closer the correlation existing between the hand work and Shop Work 
the other subjects, the greater the intrinsic value of the hand Reading^*"*'" 
work, besides the interest inspired in both. In order that this 
work may be properly related to the Eeading work, the child should 
be required to gather his instructions from the printed page. Each 
operation in the progression of his problem should be clearly and 
definitely stated in concise English. This will inspire him to 
read carefully and with real interest, for he soon finds that he is 
reading for a purpose. Thus his shop work becomes a real school 
proposition; he reads this lesson just as he reads his Geography 
or History, but now his interpretation is in material form and 
stands ready to bear evidence of his faulty understanding or careless 
execution. 

This plan has been thoroughly tested in the cases of over thirty 
thousand children in various parts of the United States, and the 
unanimous report of superintendents and teachers has been that 
the improvement brought about in the pupil's reading alone was 
sufficient to justify the trouble and expense. It instills habits of 
concentrating attention upon the printed page, and thus touches 
every phase of school work fundamentally dependent upon reading. 

The teacher who has her pupils work from oral instructions, 
or from imitation of a model made by the instructor, is using a 
method at variance with every other subject of the curriculum, and 
is surely emphasizing the gap between the shop and the class room, 
rather than bridging it over by unifying them. 

Again, it is not enough that a boy be able to shape a piece of 
wood skilfully, but he should be educated with reference to wood. 
He should be informed in regard to its structure, its properties 
and uses; the various kinds of trees; the localities in which they 
are found, and the conditions under which they thrive; food of 



28 EDUCATIONAL EFFICIENCY 



Correlation trees, circulation, coloring matter, fruits and various products 
Regular 
Studies. 



wifti Regular ^yi^ich come from tree plants ; forestry, lumbering, innumerable 



processes of milling, and thousands of other kindred subjects, should 
open vast fields of research pertaining to Geography, Botany, 
Physics, Agriculture, and the great commercial enterprises. 

Every tool should not only be learned by name and nature, but 
its very ancestry should be studied. Young students are inter- 
ested in comparing our present-day edge tools with those fashioned 
and used by the Indians or other savages. The vast domain of 
metals lies open and invites the minds of the pupils back to the 
mountains, where they review their Geography lessons, from the 
ore to the magnificently polished tools of their own shop. Combi- 
nations of metals and natures of alloys should be worked^out until 
the child understands that man has become master of metals, tem- 
pering them at will to serve his various needs. 

Tables of weights and measures should be made to have direct 
application. Uses of levers should become realities rather than 
mere formulse employing P., F. and W. Functions of pulleys 
should be so mastered that the little lad goes home and arranges 
the hay rope so that the old mare alone can hoist the load previously 
requiring the team. 

Paints, stains, oils, shellacs, varnishes, etc., should be added to 
the working knowledge of the child, in such a way that they appeal 
to his reasoning and develop his judgment. 
Sliould be a Sewing a seam may have great value as hand training, but the 
"^^l ''°"*"5® educational value of the process can be very much enhanced if the 
girl is made to have a clear and extensive comprehension of the 
materials which she is handling. Her thread and muslin should 
be traced through all their steps of production back to the cotton 
plant. All the allied interests of History and Geography — even 
social development — should be touched upon to enlarge the child's 
conception. She should know that woolen goods owe their exist- 
ence to the sheep; that silks and satins trace their origin back to 
the ugly, creeping silkworm ; and hundreds of specific points could 
be stated to show the great educational value of a real course in 
sewing. 

It is not that children should be given materials as the doctor 
gives medicine, to be swallowed and assimilated without any con- 
sideration as to their nature or identity; but every material or 
piece of equipment with which the child comes in contact should 



FOR THE NINETY AND NINE 29 

have an educational function, and that function shouki be traced as 
far as the age and comprehension of the child will permit. 

Initiative. 

There is inherent in every normal child a disposition for con- '"MlaHve No' 

Power to Orlgl- 
struction. A hoy makes a snow ball or a snow man for the satis- nate but tlie 

faction of the activity. A tiny girl will work by the hour prepar- '"*!'""* ""■ 
ing some nice mud pies; of course she has no intention of eating 
them, but is merely giving vent to her natural constructive activity. 
This latent tendency in the child is awaiting some guiding influ- 
ence which will foster its development. This is the golden oppor- 
tunity of the school — to direct the child's initiative, and while to 
direct does not in any sense mean to restrain, it must be clearly 
understood that a child's initiative — ^liis spontaneous do-ahility — 
must be wisely guided if it is to become efficiently kinetic. 

Some Manual Training teachers, over-zealous on this point, 
which they call initiative, have advanced the notion that every Man- 
ual Training problem should be drawn out of the child's own mind; 
that it is not the province of the teacher to furnish the course of 
instruction, but rather to place the material into the hands of the 
child, and then require him to make something for which his mate- 
rial is adapted, leaving that choice entirely to the pupil's option. 

This line of reasoning not only denies our pedagogy in every Demand 
way, but is also at open variance with all propositions in human 
existence. In every division of human activity, conditions, prob- 
lems and perplexities exist, and it becomes the function of the 
mind and hand to solve these difficulties, as well as possible, with 
available materials. The workaday world does not furnish us with 
fine materials, equipments and sundries and require us to think out 
some product into which we can fashion them- Men do not make 
houses, tables, chairs, telephones or clothing simply because they 
happen to be furnished with materials particularly adapted to these 
objects, but they make them because there is somewhere an impera- 
tive need for such commodities. 

We must keep in mind i\\Q fact that children, just like adults, 
are imitators. Their germ of initiative is not sufficient to enable 
them to originate until they have served a long apprenticeship in 
copying. The fundamental principles of construction must be given 
to the pupil in the printed instructions. Aside from these funda- 
mentals will be ample room for the exercise of his initiative. Design 



Governs 
Production. 



30 EDUCATIONAL EFFICIENCY 

and decoration offer wide range of possibility and flexibility for the 
pupil to put his own personality into his work. 
Manual Train- The laws of science are fixed ; they are arbitrary and require 
Science and ^^^^S mastered in their own way; but art is more flexible, making 
an Art. itself subservient to one's festhetic taste. The underlying princi- 
ples of our mother tongue are more or less established; they con- 
stitute our scientific grammar, but the artistic side allows of more 
freedom and display of personality; hence the study of language. 
In order to improve their own style, writers study over and over 
the masterpieces of our great authors, and thus acquire beauty of 
expression by mere absorption. No one would deny a child the 
privilege of reading choice literature for fear its influence would 
rob him of his individuality. Why, then, should we feel so^reluctant 
in directing his hand work, for fear of destroying his initiative ? 

Grade children should not be required to spend time in con- 
struction of mere exercises. While this method may gain satisfac- 
tory results with mature students, who can readily comprehend the 
relation of these unassociated exercises to their future function in 
a completed piece of work, such application is too remote for 
younger minds. Each problem, when completed, should be some- 
thing in itself, and the more closely it touches the boy's life, the 
more enthusiastically will he pursue its making. A boy will work 
on a sled or a kite with more spontaneity than he will a book case 
or a library table, because in his experience there is a need for the 
former. And such p.v.l.Iems — toys though they be — can be made 
very valuable lessons in the boy's development if they are properly 
handled. All the shop problems should be carefully selected and 
graded so as to form a genuine course of study, with every problem 
in its proper and logical place according to the natural sequence 
of the course. Each lesson should be a review of the principles of 
the previous lessons, with just as much of the new as is consistent 
with the progress of the child. 
Sequence Things pertaining to Agriculture should be woven into the 
course ; planting boxes and seed testers should be made and placed 
in actual operation in the school. Miniature problems in the use of 
cement could easily be given, and all the properties and principles 
of that great factor in modern construction could be readily added 
to the child's general information. 

The matters of mutual interest between the school and the farm 
are beyond limit, yet it is astonishing to see how many boys who 



Important. 



FOR THE NINETY AND NINE 31 

expect to be farmers feel that the school has nothing of value for 
them. 

The consideration of an ideal course of study, in which the mind 
and hand work are properly balanced and fittingly correlated, 
resolves itself into a never-ending discussion. So numerous are 
the points of contact by which the school should communicate with 
its environment that almost any one of them would furnish thought 
for a lengthy treatise. 

This paper has made no attempt at laying out a course of 
study ; it has merely meant to offer some passing suggestions on a 
few salient points which certainly deserve the consideration of our 
public schools. 

It is truly painful to see that time is going by day after day, 
while only a school, now and then, scattered here and there over 
the country, is really coming into its natural birthright and exer- 
cising its full possibility toward the wliole child. 

Lack of ambition is the cause of this delay. Thousands of More Ambition 
teachers and officials recognize the value of Manual Training; yet ®® ® ' 
they walk in the same old path, and allow things to pursue lines of 
least resistance. 

Petty difficulties always have and always will exaggerate them- 
selves in the eyes of those who can be put off by an excuse. Things 
were not favorable for the discovery of America, but ambition and 
fearless nerve accomplished the task. Freedom and prosperity did 
not thrust their blessings upon the American colonies, but every 
schoolboy knows that they were purchased regardless of the sacrifice. 

No doubt our teachers are an overworked, underpaid and proba- 
bly unappreciated class of public servants ; but that does not relieve 
them, in the least degree, of their responsibility to the youth of the 
land. These children are in no wise to blame for the present social 
conditions, but if the schools of today give this generation of pupils 
their full deserts, the teachers of tomorrow will not want for means 
to pursue their calling. 

Come, let -us redouble our energy in an effort to hold the many 
who are going astray, and let us spare no means of making the fold 
more inviting ; for whatever may be the cost, surely we may Justly 
feel that there is room for rejoicing when we have reclaimed for 
©ur schools the Ninetv and Nine. 



FINIS. 



One copy del. to Cat. Div. 
APR 28 ^9^^ 



